■ Government
Construction going fast
Over 90 percent of the 224 public construction plans designated for this year had been carried out as of last month, a spokesman for the cabinet-level Public Construction Commission said yesterday. As of the end of last month, 90.43 percent of the public construction plans earmarked for last year, each of which is worth more than NT$100 million (US$2.93 million), had been carried out, the official said, adding that the 224 projects involve a total budget of NT$354 billion. During the same period, relevant government agencies inspected 231 public construction plans, up from 151 for the first half of last year, he said.
■ Politics
Rivals share plane
The two hopefuls for next legislative speakership, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Democratic Progressive Party Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), took the same flight to New York and arrived on Monday. Wang said that they had discussed everything except for the speakership issue. Chang said that it was not yet the moment to discuss the matter. Wang also denied a rumor saying that the US had already given Taiwan a new quote on cost of a proposed arms deal. "The US will give us a good response upon our request within two or three weeks," Wang said. Wang will lead the legislative delegation attending the South Central America and Caribbean Sea Speaker Forum in Guatemala. Members of the delegation include Legislators Wang Shu-hui (王淑慧), Lan Mei-chin (藍美津), Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) and Chen Chien-ming (陳健銘). Chang will attend his niece's wedding and stay in US for 10 days.
■ Society
Role models talk to girls
The Garden of Hope Foundation, which works with abused children, is holding career workshops, or "Working Days," for middle-school and high-school girls. The event will target young girls because the foundation wishes to address issues of gender equality, said director Ji Hui-rong (紀惠容). Female professionals, including Taipei 101 CEO Chen Min-shun (陳敏勳), CTV executive Chiang hsia (江霞) and Executive Yuan Vice Chairwoman Yeh Ju-lan (葉菊蘭), will give the girls words of wisdom about their occupations and life's work. Ice cream entrepreneur Liny Shueh (薛麗妮), the first invited speaker, encouraged the girls to have confidence in themselves and dare to dream, saying that her childhood history of abuse did not prevent her from being everything that she wanted to be.
■ Infrastructure
Highway name proposed
Seventeen people including Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Soochow University professor Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) yesterday proposed the name "Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway" for No. 3 National Freeway, in response to the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau's open request for names for the new highway. The 17 people said in a press release that since Chiang was one of Taiwan's most significant historical figures, that the freeway should be named after him. Chiang was one of Taiwan's political pioneers, who fought against the Japanese colonial regime. He sought to lift the status of Taiwanese under the Japanese rule through the creation of democratic political movements. Chiang was also the Founder of Taiwan Cultural Association, and has set up the country's first political party, the Taiwan People's Party.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching